The children left behind - Innocenti Research Centre

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2 I n n o c e n t i R e p o r t C a r d 9 T h e c h i l d r e n l e f t b e h i n d A league table of inequality in child well-being in the world’s rich countries Fig. 1a A league table of inequality in child well-being The table summarizes the findings of Report Card 9, ranking 24 OECD countries by their performance in each of three dimensions of inequality in child well-being. inequality lower than OECD average inequality close to OECD average inequality higher than OECD average Fig. 1b The overall record Figure 1b ranks each country by its overall inequality record. Three points have been awarded for a better than average performance, 2 points for a performance at or close to the OECD average, and 1 point for a below average performance (see note for definitions). Countries in alphabetical order within groups. Material well-being rank Education well-being rank Health well-being rank Higher score = greater equality Switzerland 1 Finland 1 Netherlands 1 Iceland 2 Ireland 2 Norway 2 Netherlands 3 Canada 3 Portugal 3 Denmark 4 Denmark 4 Germany 4 France 5 Poland 5 Switzerland 5 Finland 6 Hungary 6 Belgium 6 Austria 7 Sweden 7 Ireland 7 Norway 8 Netherlands 8 Denmark 8 Sweden 9 Spain 9 Canada 9 Germany 10 Iceland 10 Czech Republic 10 Czech Republic 11 Norway 11 United Kingdom 11 Luxembourg 12 Switzerland 12 Slovakia 12 Ireland 13 United Kingdom 13 Austria 13 Spain 14 Portugal 14 Sweden 14 Belgium 15 Slovakia 15 France 15 Portugal 16 Luxembourg 16 Finland 16 Canada 17 Czech Republic 17 Iceland 17 Greece 18 Greece 18 Poland 18 United Kingdom 19 United States 19 Luxembourg 19 Italy 20 Germany 20 Greece 20 Poland 21 Italy 21 Spain 21 Hungary 22 Austria 22 United States 22 United States 23 France 23 Italy 23 Slovakia 24 Belgium 24 Hungary 24 8 7 6 5 3 Denmark Finland Netherlands Switzerland Iceland Ireland Norway Sweden Austria Canada France Germany Poland Portugal Belgium Czech Republic Hungary Luxembourg Slovakia Spain United Kingdom Greece Italy United States Figs. 1a and 1b are limited to the 24 OECD countries with available data for all three dimensions of inequality in child well-being. Note: To compare the inequality performance of the featured countries in each dimension of child well-being, inequality scores for the individual indicators used are first converted to standard scores (i.e. inequality is measured in standard deviations from the OECD unweighted average). The standardized scores are then averaged to arrive at an inequality score for each dimension. For purposes of Figs. 1a and 1b, ‘inequality close to average’ is defined as a score within the range of -0.5 to +0.5 standard deviations from the OECD average. ‘inequality lower than OECD average’ is defined as having a standard deviation score greater than +0.5 from the OECD unweighted average. ‘inequality higher than OECD average’ is defined as having a standard score of less than -0.5 from the OECD unweighted average. Source: See page 30 (Data for Report Card 9: the surveys) for data sources used in the measurement of inequality in the different dimensions of children’s well-being.
I n n o c e n t i R e p o r t C a r d 9 3 Part 1 Introduction This Report Card presents a first overview of inequalities in child well-being for 24 of the world’s richest countries. Three dimensions of inequality are examined: material well-being, education, and health. In each case and for each country, the question asked is ‘how far behind are children being allowed to fall?’ Figure 1a summarizes the results. Within the limitations of the available data, it represents an overview of how well the world’s developed nations are living up to the ideal of ‘no child left behind’. Figure 1b presents the same data from a different perspective, showing each nation’s performance in relation to the average for the nations of the OECD as a whole. Both charts show that a small group of countries – Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland – are leading the way in promoting equality in children’s well-being. Greece, Italy and the United States, on the other hand, are allowing children to fall furthest behind. Why inequality matters The increase in inequality over the last three decades – its economic causes, its social costs, its possible remedies – is the subject of considerable debate in OECD countries today. i On the one hand it is argued that, after a certain level of economic development has been achieved, greater equality “would increase the well-being and quality of life for all”. ii On the other, it is maintained that inequality is a justifiable reflection of differences in ability and effort and provides incentives for further progress in all fields of human endeavour. This is an important debate. But it is not one that affects the premise of this report. The idea that inequality is justified as a reflection of differences in merit cannot reasonably be applied to children. Few would deny that children’s early circumstances are beyond their own control. Or that those early circumstances have a profound effect on their present lives and future prospects. Or that growing up in poverty incurs a substantially higher risk of lower standards of health, of reduced cognitive development, of underachievement at school, of lower skills and aspirations, and eventually of lower adult earnings, so helping to perpetuate disadvantage from one generation to the next. None of this is the fault of the child. Second, the question being asked here – ‘how far behind are children being allowed to fall?’ – requires a measure not of overall inequality but of inequality at the bottom end of the distribution. In other words, the metric used is not the distance between the top and the bottom but between the median and the bottom. The median level of child well-being – whether in material goods, educational outcomes, or level of health – represents what is considered normal in a given society and falling behind that median by more than a certain degree carries a risk of social exclusion. Today, ‘bottom-end inequality’ is no longer a concern only of the political left. In the United Kingdom, for example, a Conservative Prime Minister has argued that “We should focus on closing the gap between the bottom and the middle not because that is the easy thing to do, but because focusing on those who do not have the chance of a good life is the most important thing to do.” That ‘gap between the bottom and the middle’ is the focus of Report Card 9. Measuring inequality It should be said from the outset that the data deployed for measuring inequality, although the latest available, are derived from surveys conducted before the 2008 economic crisis (Box 2). Nor are the data comprehensive. There is, for example, very little statistical information available on the critical early years of childhood. It is also important to recognize that well-being has many dimensions and its measurement should also be multidimensional to the extent that the data allow. “Each dimension of
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The children left behind - Innocenti Research Centre

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